Heavens! It's Astronomy Day Club's Event Draws Crowd

April 18, 1994|by JOSEPH McDERMOTT, The Morning Call

Patrick Titus of Perkasie eyed the long rectangular box with trepidation and doubt.

But when amateur astronomer Ed Radomski of the Bucks-Mont Astronomy Association tried to explain how the Deibler Elementary School student could use the box to view a solar eclipse next month, the doubt turned to interest and the trepidation to a cautious fascination.

His mother, Kathye Titus, a former Navy meteorologist, had no such qualms. Standing beside him in the center of the Peddlers Village Shops in Lahaska, she urged her son to examine the homemade device and consider making his own before the moon blocks out the sun May 10.

Astronomy is an interest she is working to encourage in her 13-year-old son, she said.

"He is pretty into it and has tried building his own telescopes," Titus said. "It's a passion of mine, particularly the constellations and their movements."

Saturday's exhibit marked the third year the club has conducted its Astronomy Day at the popular Bucks County tourist attraction in a continuing effort to create more public interest in the nighttime skies -- and the daytime skies, for that matter.

Shoppers lined up to gaze through the four telescopes erected along the sidewalk patiently waited for a glimpse of the sun through filtered lenses, rewarded with the sight of a silver circle that featured a black dot in the lower right corner. The dot marked an Earth-size sunspot, a flare-up on the sun's surface, the astronomers explained.

The club also conducts monthly star watches for the public at Peace Valley Park in New Britain Township, Radomski said.

"This year we have tried something new. We are going out to parking lots and setting up our stuff to get people passing by," he explained. "Even though there is light there, you can usually see something, and we usually pick a good moon night to do it."

It is a fair gamble, if the current club members are any indication. Most became interested in astronomy after seeing an astronomical object through a lens, members say.

George Reagan, a computer programmer from Bensalem, said he became hooked gazing at stars and meteor showers as a child.

"I just became curious, I wanted to see more," he said as the sun emerged from behind a passing cloud. "I have seen Neptune, I have seen Uranus and I have seen a supernova in Galaxy M-31. It's a lot of fun."

Linda van der Spek, 35, of Holland, Bucks County, has also been stargazing since childhood but determined to learn more about astronomy when she returned home with her husband, Peter, 39, who was born in Holland, the nation.

Van der Spek said her husband, who was born and raised in a city, was amazed at the number of stars he could see from their American home.

"One night he got out of the car and looked up and said, `Wow, you can see so much here,'" she said as her husband, an organ builder and assistant curator for the Grand Court Piano at Wanamakers in Philadelphia, set up their computerized telescope several yards away.

"I tried explaining and I was able to point out the Big Dipper and Orion and some other things, but after a while, I couldn't answer any more of his questions. So we decided to learn more about it by contacting the club."

Club veterans were enthusiastic about explaining the different astronomical phenomenon in terms readily understood by novices, she said. They were also helpful when the van der Speks bought their own telescope, which has more than 800 objects programmed into it for quick adjustments.

"The neat thing about the club is you don't need any specialized knowledge (to join). All you need to do is tilt your head back."

The Bucks-Mont Astronomy Association meets the first Wednesday of every month at Peace Valley Nature Center, New Britain Township. For more information, call 579-0073.